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Friday, March 25, 2011

The story of our Homestead

I really felt compelled to share abit about our family history today. I honestly feel very blessed to be where we are at in life right now.

So I'll start at the very beginning......
My father's family immigrated from Ireland in the early 1800's. They settled in south Alabama ( no clue why....). Then the story goes that a few years after the Civil War one of the family members moved up North to Arkansas and bought some land. This was obviously when land was very abundant and he bought several hundred acres. He married someone locally and had a child, my grandfather. He was born in 1920 something, and got married also and had 8 siblings. The youngest of which was my father.

When each of the older siblings got old enough to marry they each got land. My grandfather passed away when my father was about 17 and my father was the only one not married with kiddos by then, so he was kind of the commissioned to take care of my grandmother. He stayed around the original homeplace helping her. He got married, had a 3 kiddos and when my grandmother passed away, the original homestead plus the acreage that was to be "his" when he married belonged to him. He's lived on the same patch of land his entire life.

I grew up here also. By this time the old dog trot house has been torn down and a newer model was erected. The well is still in perfect condition though and has the coldest water in the South I promise! Other remnents include some beautiful trees and bushes my grandmother had planted, as well as dozens of various fruit and nut trees. There is a gigantic Oak tree also, that still has an old peice of plywood on it that served as my father's basketball hoop growing up.

Yeah, so I grew up in this paradise. 3 ponds to fish and swim in, beautifully rippling creeks to play in and catch crawdads in, loads of fresh fruit in the summer right off the tree and great room for gardens and livestock. I was a blessed little girl for certain. So I grew up there. I loved it there. I graduated high school and went to college. I got married and of course where else would I want to live? None other than where I grew up.

So my father very willingly allowed us to have a portion of his land. We can still walk to his house and the well is still functioning halfway between our two homes. On the other side of the hill is my uncle and a little further down is an aunt. Thankfully my husband ( who grew up in the city) is just as mesmerized by it all as I am. We've added our own goat pen, chicken coops, gardening areas etc. But we still share the well, a strawberry patch, a corn field, the potato patch, and a watermelon patch with my parents and of course above all else we share memories and we get the chance to share our lives together.

My kiddos get to grow up with their grandparents and they get to experience this enchanting world that I was always a part of.

What a wonderful childhood you had, and now your own children will have one of the same. I can almost see you all pumping water from the well for a cold drink in the summer. Do you still have an old pump handle to use?